December 22nd was a milestone in our home: 1 year since Darlene was diagnosed with Celiac Disease,
hence 1 year since living gluten free.
Happy Anniversary to us!
Here’s what we’ve learned in a year:
1 out of every 133 Americans has Celiac Disease but 97%
don’t yet know it. If you
experience chronic stomach problems ask your doctor to give you the genetic marker test. A positive result means continue
testing. (The antibody test can yield false negatives which was the case with Darlene.) The gold standard for
diagnosis is a deep endoscopy that goes into the duodenum.
Celiac is an autoimmune disease. Basically your body becomes malnourished because it's not able to get the vitamins it needs. So, you would expect most Celiac sufferers to be rail thin...yeah, right! According to Scott Adams at www.Celiac.com, 39% of Celiacs are overweight and 30% are obese. Do the math - that leaves only 31% to be "normal" weight or underweight. Not what one would expect.
When we made the announcement at home that we would begin eating GF our kids were quite unhappy. What they didn't know is that most foods are inherently gluten free. Meat, poultry, fish, dairy, fruits
& vegetables are all foods we eat on a daily basis and they are all gluten
free. Good starches for Celiacs
are potatoes, rice, corn & quinoa (well, we don't do quinoa in our house - we equate it with being vegetarian and Eric and is a staunch "meat & potatoes" guy!).
So imagine our surprise when our son began stealing Darlene's food out of the fridge. He didn't know it was GF he just knew that he loved it, especially the P. F. Chang's Spicy Chicken off their GF menu. Our 2 go-to takeout places are Chang's & Outback. They both have great GF menus and are close by. But Darlene doesn't trust most of the franchise restaurants because they only have line cooks who haven't been to culinary school and usually don't know what gluten is. This works in our favor as we both love foodie restaurants anyway!
Living gluten free forces us to make more homemade whole foods. A good example is BBQ sauce. We had never bothered to make one from scratch before; now
we find we can control all the ingredients for health, fat and caloric content. Yes, your pantry will go through a few
changes but we’ve found those changes are for the better. You'll get rid of the processed foods
and use good quality foods that you can control.
Substituting gluten in savory recipes is simple. If you are flouring meats or
sauces just substitute rice flour, potato starch, tapioca flour, nut flour or
one of the specialty gluten free all-purpose flour mixtures on the market today. We take plain GF crackers and pulse them in the food processor to make panko - it's a cinch!
The texture and mouth feel/chew quality are different
without the gluten. We personally have found that the best desserts are those
containing the least amount of flour.
A GFcupcake often seems to have the texture of stale carrot cake – that
doesn’t seem to be worth the calories! But to be fair, we haven’t spent much time perfecting the technique of GF baking; we do, however, have every confidence that our daughter will perfect it for us as a culinary
student. So we tend to make
desserts that require little flour like Darlene’s No Gluten Zone Brownies,
which she created for Super Bowl 2009 (recipe below). Now, brownies are not difficult to make gluten free - it's similar to a flourless chocolate cake which any chocoholic will tell you is rich in chocolate and increases your serotonin level by leap and bounds!
No Gluten Zone Brownies
The same goes for pizza. The crust will not have that same chewy mouth feel so we
don’t try to emulate a typical pizza (tomato sauce, pepperoni, etc.) Instead we opt for rich, savory
ingredients. Our fave so far is
fig jam, caramelized onions, prosciutto & blue cheese.
We never eat fried
foods out. The 2 times Darlene
tried (even though she was assured everything was gluten free and fried in clean vats of oil) she was
violently ill. Taking the chance
is just not worth it.
Become friendly with your neighborhood restaurants. They are always willing to
accommodate. Our sushi restaurant,
Katana, special orders jumbo lump crab to make special rolls for Darlene. We bring in our own wheat free soy
sauce (wheat free tamari) and mayonnaise and they add the appropriate spices so
she can enjoy the special spicy mayo for sushi. At Iron Bridge Wine Company Darlene pretty much makes her
own meal by choosing the items on the menu she can have and they are always
happy to accommodate. And, at the revered Top Chef restaurant Volt, Bryan Voltaggio has substituted several items on his Tasting Menu to
accommodate Darlene.
Specialty appetizer at Volt – only 1 item was
substituted to make the dish gluten free. Clockwise from bottom left: Beef Tartare, Tuna
Tartare, Beet Macaroon filled with foie gras mousse, Sweet & Sour Macaroon
filled with guacamole, Romaine Lettuce Macaroon filled with Caesar dressing.
When traveling be sure to bring snacks to keep you going
until you can get real food: craisins, apples, bananas & nuts are all
standard snacks that Darlene can easily slip in her handbag on the way to the
airport or train station. We also keep a box of GF crackers in the car so if we're at a restaurant that serves a "mean" cheese plate, Darlene has some crackers to complement it (life can sometimes be boring when "the cheese stands alone").
And, finally, we learned how to read food labels for hidden
gluten, preventing cross-contamination of GF foods, and many more tidbits at www.celiac.com
and www.celiac.org.
No Gluten Zone Brownies
6 oz. 70% cocoa chocolate bar
1 tbl vanilla
1 cup butter, softened
4 eggs
1-1/2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup + 1 tbl gluten free flour blend (use your own favorite
- I used Pamela's)
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
Preheat oven to 300°.
Grease an 8"x 8" baking pan.
Melt butter and chocolate in a saucepan over medium-low
heat, stirring occasionally. Do not overcook chocolate - if you are down to a
few small chunks remove from heat immediately and stir until all chunks are
melted and mixture is smooth. Add
vanilla and stir to incorporate.
In a large bowl, beat eggs until light yellow - 3-5 minutes
with an electric mixer. Add sugar
and beat on low until thoroughly combined.
Add chocolate mixture to the egg mixture and beat on low
until smooth. Add ½ cup GF flour
and mix thoroughly.
Mix chocolate chips with 1 tbl GF flour and fold into
batter.
Pour batter into prepared pan and bake 45-55 minutes or
until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool to room temperature before cutting
into 2-inch squares.
Servings: 16